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The article describes an approach to development of a national military capability requirements database and its relationship with reference units which will be finally used for assessing capabilities of existing force units. Outcomes from recently completed analyses lead to the conclusion that the single set of capability requirements as specified in the Bi-SC Agreed Capability Codes and Capability Statements, can be taken as a key stone for developing a national database of capability requirements. A due adaptation of this document to the Czech MOD allows getting a complex frame of capabilities which force units shall manage to achieve given operational tasks both in the context of a national or multinational task force group. Consequently such a database can be exploited for setting up a mechanism for capability assessment.

Research into the use of structured analytical techniques has shown that analysts use specific structured techniques to achieve better analysis results than using traditional intuitive approaches. The experiment was based on solving the analytical tasks of two intelligence scenarios in a set of 32 people. To verify the null hypothesis, a chi-square test of independence was performed at a 5% significance level. In the control/intuitive and experimental/structured technique groups, responses were evaluated in four criteria, in an overall qualitative intelligence analysis, in rank corps, depending on the time of service and education. The number of correct answers was the highest in the experimental group when dealing with the intelligence analysis criteria for both scenarios. Improved analysis of the experimental group in the second scenario solution was statistically significant. The null hypothesis, using structured methodology improves qualitative intelligence analysis, is not rejected. In the experiment, other test criteria are below than the critical value. The results of the research have shown that the success of the problem solution is influenced by the correct use of the Hypothesis Testing technique. The use of structured techniques depends on the level of knowledge and the type of intelligence problem. At the same time, the conduct of research has shown the influence of analysts' cognitive biases.

Tanks and anti-tank weapons in modernized and innovated forms will still appear on battlefields in the next 20 years to eliminate armoured targets and personnel with the usage of precision-guided munition. The progress of electronation and digitalization of tanks allows better situation awareness on the battlefield and cooperation with other military assets. An active protection measures were introduced to protect the crew such as reactive armour, active defence weapon systems and composite armour. By establishing a safe perimeter with active defence systems, tanks can sustain the incoming anti-tank weapons. Hence is the U.S. Army currently looking for a replacement of 3^rd generation Abrams tanks. The U.S. Army is considering in this case unmanned vehicle as well. The Russian Federation on the other hand enhances conventional tank scheme with modern technologies. Far too much electronation does not have to be necessarily due to the automatic loading mechanism always a step forward.

The basic purpose of this article is to introduce mentioned new military publication, recently compiled and prepared by the team of authors from the Czech Tradoc in Vyškov. This code should unify the practice within the ACR. It is not an internal normative rule (military manual), but it has validity of service document, under the authority of the Chief of Czech General Staff. In a way, it is the document of new generation, possessing doctrinal character. Principles explained in this publication are binding, but the ways of their application and usage depend solely on army commanders. The publication integrates, unifies and harmonizes military terminology in use, describe the preparation of units for foreign missions, military exercises and their evaluations (including respective documents), defines methods of planning namely at the level of company (battery), battalion (group), underlines significance of e-learning and so on.

The work deals with the issue of engineer information, which is necessary for the planning of water crossing, and which can facilitate and speed up the proces of operation planning with the assistance of the staff members of engineer specialization. At present (2019) there is no application software development of engineer support tasks (hereinafter APV ŽEN) within the engineer command and control subsystem AČR, which would take into account the problem of water crossing by troops. The aim of the article is: to analyze the gathering of engineer information for water crossing and to describe it on a specific example of the Morava river, to identify the possibilities of water crossing by forces of AČR, to propose a map base for APV ŽEN, which will be supplemented by engineer information from Povodí s.p. and Motorway and Highway Directorate (hereinafter ŘSD) and to define measures that will support the availability of engineer information in water crossing.

The retraining courses of the Ministry of Defence aim to prepare soldiers for the civilian environment and to enable them to acquire the knowledge and skills that are applicable in the labour market. In the years 2008-2017 11 605 soldiers of the Czech Armed Forces terminated their service. The application for retraining was submitted by 3 644 persons, of whom 2 769 were retrained. The prevalence of retraining is in technical professions (1 342 persons) and in managerial and business training (832 persons). The research question and the statistical evaluation of the data obtained confirms the hypothesis that most soldiers were not retrained. The results of sociological research carried out among 313 former soldiers of the Czech Armed Forces show that more than three fifths of soldiers did not apply for retraining (64%), especially among higher positions and college graduates, because of no information about the data of termination of service (25%), no need for retraining (20 %) and not completing the retraining course (30 %) mostly because of the refusal of the superiors. The shortcomings of the retraining system of professional soldiers are summarized.

Light Infantry units are primarily equipped with the Iveco light armored vehicles in the Army of the Czech Republic. Similar type of vehicles was acquired by the armies of some other NATO members. Armored LMVs represent a new category of equipment and no specific tactical procedures have yet been created. The aim of the text was to develop general tactical light infantry procedures for the current training needs of units with Iveco LMVs. In the text, combat battle drills on vehicles and tactical procedures for the use of light units equipped with the LMV Iveco have been created. Combat deployment experience and results of live simulation were main source of information for development of LMV tactics and procedures. Presented procedures can be used for training of units equipped with LMV Iveco. The use of light armored vehicles also showed the design limits of this technique. LMVs Iveco cannot fulfill the role of primary vehicle of light infantry units on a conventional battlefield mainly due to their low level of endurance.

Rocket technology occupies an elite position in the doctrines of hybrid actors in the Middle East. The thesis of proliferation of tactical ballistic missiles analyses four models - political, technological, substitutional and propagandist-psychological. An effective reduction of ballistic missiles and technologies has been identified in the political model, where sanctions and embargoes limit the proliferation of missile technology. In the technical model, which plays a key role, the limiting factors are those of development and dissemination of high-energy laser weapons. The substitutional model illustrates the application of tactical ballistic missiles as carriers for improvised devices. It is of marginal importance, despite covering targets that involve secondary damage. Studying the model of propaganda and psychology confirms the psychological effect on the population associated with the losses, but it does not affect the reduction of missiles.

This article analyzes strategic engagement of the Russian Federation and the United States of America in the South Caucasus in four phases of development from the end of the Cold War until present day. The first phase covers early nineties, the second is from mid-nineties to 2003, the third from 2004 to 2008 and the fourth from 2009 to 2016/2017. There are three key trends during the examined period. First, Russia has permanent strategic interests in the South Caucasus due to maintaining its own state security and securing the position of the most prominent external actor in the region. Second, Russia's weakness and active engagement of the US/NATO are barriers to realizing Russia's state interests. Third, the South Caucasus is strategically more significant to Russia than the US/NATO.

At present, it can be seen a tangible progress in the NATO-EU common approach to deal with challenging security issues. Paradoxically, it has been economic recession in combination with growing danger of arising armed conflicts, specifically on the European continent territory, to start up the closer cooperation between NATO and the EU. Logically, the current security situation ended in conclusions that the complementarity between NATO and the EU became a real necessity and only interaction between the Alliance and Union?s security and defence policies could bring required effects, while upholding global and local security stability. The article is available only in the Czech language. For more information please contact editors.

The career education of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) personnel is a key component to meet requirements for qualifications. As these requirements are career growth conditions for career personnel, they are inherently connected with further promotion in rank. During the process of preparation of the career courses it was revealed that some system changes should be made due to implemented or planned changes within the legislative and source framework of the Ministry of Defence. This article describes the implementation process of a new policy for training personnel in the career courses. It was prepared by a project team headed by the Centre for Security and Military Strategic Studies at the Defence University. Furthermore, the article deals with the clarification of the approach to the development of educational documentation and the chosen form of organization and conduction of military career courses. Also, a quality control system and a collection of information needed for upgrading of the senior officers career education curricula are described.

This article analyses frozen Conflict in separatist region of Transnistria in the light of recent crisis on Ukraine. Despite standing in the shade of Ukraine, the importance of Transnistria has been once again highlighted by Russian support to separatist movements in post-soviet area. Hence text also argues, that by precise analysis of important agents involved in Transnistrian conflict, such as Russia, Ukraine or Romania, we can better understand not only current development in this "de-facto state", but also put annexation of Crimea (or war in eastern Ukraine) into context. On the other hand, influence of Russian military presence in Transnistria on Ukraine war effort is also important and deserves to be closely studied.

The main characteristics of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic-leadership, organization, doctrines, personnel and its preparation, weapons systems, material, infrastructure-has been continuously adopted since their creation in 1993. This article analyses three main strands of this process: the first one constitutes the changes in the global security environment and their impact on the role and tasks of armed forces. The second strand reflects the marginalisation of security and defence policy agenda, influencing the instability of armed forces. The last strand focuses on the growing role of international organisations during the provision of security and defence of the Czech Republic. In summary, the author identifies main challenges ahead for Czech political and military leadership.

This essay presents the development of opinions on the role of language training of students and learners of foreign language (officer candidates) within the development of speech and understanding capabilities in recent years. It analyses the ratio of general and special languages at military system of language preparation. Increased attention is paid to the acquisition of the so-called special competencies. The article also mentions the activities of educators in the field of terminology. The most stimulating and demanding is a stress upon professional communication at magisterial stages of university education. In conclusion, further trends in given areas are emphasized. The article was written to mark 10th anniversary of the first terminology conference in defence sector and joining the Czech Republic into standardization process that took place at Defence University Brno.

In course of action, modern forces ought to be capable to safe living surroundings by the implementation of environmental protection into military planning and decision-making process. Traditionally it protects not only a location around military bases, training areas, but also in all operational area of deployed armed forces. This study therefore deals with methods of environmental protection and the so-called risk management to prevent damages that can't be remediated, both in the field of natural, cultural or historic sights and relicts.

On the introduction, the article focuses on clarifying the place and role of counterinsurgency in current military operations. It also deals with the principles of counterinsurgency and their doctrinal comparison within some advanced armies and the NATO. The aim is to highlight some findings related to principles that should be changed,added in doctrine and incorporated into the training of the ACR troops. The result of the analysis and comparison of individual principles with own experience of the author from the mission in Afghanistan are recommendations given for the troop training in the theatre. The implementation of the proposed measures in preparation of the Czech Army units may improve the effectivenessof counterinsurgency in military operations.

Personnel Recovery is currently an inseparable part of all NATO military operations. This article is focused on the development of the Personnel Recovery in military operations from the Second World War to the 2003 Iraq War. It describes the meaning of the concept of Personnel Recovery, introduces its basic aims including the clarification of its importance in military operations. It focuses on the identification of conditions that determine the existence of the rescue system. In the historical context, it describes the circumstances of development of the recovery of isolated personnel, including its incorporation into a functional system. It identifies and analyzes events that, in terms of their importance and ability to influence subsequent development, represents milestones in the organization of Personnel Recovery and from them describes the measures taken.

The aim of the article is to present a synthesis of findings from both analyses and their application while conceiving a proposal of methodology for military capability assessment of Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. The proposed approach to capability assessment stems from principles of the NATO´s J-DARTS (Joint Defence Planning Analysis and Requirements Tool Set) and EU´s SAEP (Scrutinising, Assessing, Evaluating and Prioritising Process) when the main attention was focused on the phase of matching current capabilities of force units against capability requirements, follow-on identification of shortfalls and their prioritisation. The degree of priority should primarily qualify the level of operational risk stemming from potential engagement of force units in an operation.

This article focuses on answering the question to what extent did the German foreign and security policy change, based on the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, especially when it comes to military deployment abroad. The author identifies and analyses the consequences associated with the German experience in Afghanistan and their influence on the current and future deployment of German armed forces abroad. The attention is given to the German strategic culture of "civilian power" and the question, if Germany still fulfills the attributes connected with this theoretical concept. The author verifies this assumption by means of the role theory concept, which helps to understand the behavior of Germany on the international level.

This article describes the basic terms used in prognostics (future studies, forecasting the future, prognosis, prediction, expert) and introduces selected prognostic methods and techniques which could be applied in security area (brainstorming, focus group, trend extrapolation, Delphi method, scenarios etc.). The basic classifications and prognosis typologies are mentioned as well. Particular phases of prognosis making are described too. For the Czech security community the prognosis making has an important potential whose outcomes (of particular surveys) should be manifest in following years. This text has only tried to outline selected methods and techniques for their potential application.

The paper deals with the ability of engineer units to provide engineer mobility support in combat operations. Based on the analysis of the results of structured interviews conducted with extensive amount of the Czech Armed Forces officers, and their generalization, were found discrepancies between the current and required state in the organizational structure of engineer units to provide effective mobility support, and requirements for engineer devices to support mobility in the Czech Armed Forces conditions were formulated. The aim of this article is to present recommendations for inclusion of different types of engineer devices into formed engineer formations for mobility support in relation to the tasks performed within engineer role of mobility support and determine recommendations for the further direction of research in this area.

The article deals with the mental strain, as subjectively perceived by Czech soldiers and their families in the course of and after return from international missions. The research part was processed based on nine in-depth interviews with soldiers with different experiences from foreign missions. The data were processed with the help of grounded theory. The results showed that the involvement in missions is mainly positively assessed, primarily thanks to professional development. The operations bring specific stressors; additionally to critical situations, there is primarily the stress related to separation from the family and the cabin fever. The soldiers cope with the stressors thanks to the contact with their families, thanks to a good team, leisure time activities and support from the chaplain or the psychologist. The duration of the adaptation stage after the mission varies very much. It includes problems with restoring contact with the children and adapting to routine life, as well as the envy of surrounding people, considered by the soldiers a "Czech particularity", caused by low positive publicity of the Czech army.

The article follows the leading theme of the Czech Military Review No. 2/2013 dealing with the application White Paper on Defence 2011. Both authors are members of the Lifelong Learning Department, Defence University, Brno. Backed by long experiences in military professional education and training, they present their views on advantages and disadvantages of the current model of officers' professional preparation, particularly senior officers. The authors' aim is to arouse a constructive debate about the changes in the current model of senior officers' career education. Their views are based upon history examples and models of some selected NATO nations.

The aim of the article is to bring inspiration and offer needed recommendations for implementing the scenarios in the defence planning process. The article addresses purpose, development and practical application of scenarios in a national defence planning process, utilizing capability based planning (National Capability Based Defence Planning - NCBDP). During the planning scenarios are used for identification and verification of capability requirements. Scenarios depict main features of the environment in which the armed forces will be employed to execute military missions. Scenarios reflect as well operational concepts in a sense of doctrinal use of armed forces. Furthermore, they offer a possibility to identify and quantify required capabilities in a volatile, difficult to predict, complex, permanently and dynamically changing environment, and reduce level of uncertainty and associated risks. In this regard, scenarios are significant analytical and supporting tool of defence planning with high value added. Correct application of scenarios allows defining a set of required capabilities necessary for success in potential future conflicts. Scenarios enable long-term planning of capabilities development and optimisation as a platform for qualified and well informed decisions at the MoD level on the armed forces character, structure and size with regard to the ambitions and international commitments of the country. In the conclusion the article brings recommendations for the defence planning process improvement by exploiting capability based planning and scenarios. Recommendations provided in the article include doctrinal changes, organizational changes within MoD and General staff, recommendations for updating the education plans for military personnel, recommendations for optimization of the defence planning process as well as for necessary changes in the approach of the defence managers and military leaders to the described method.

The article thematically completes a series of articles which subject was to present outcomes of analyses focused on national as well as NATO and EU capability planning processes. Synthesis of analysis outcomes resulted in conceiving a methodologic framework for military capability assessment, whereas the first phase of this framework, i.e. configuration of the national capability requirements database, has been already described in the previous edition of the Czech Military Review. So this article details final phases of the proposed methodological framework, which are set of reference units and mechanism for matching capability requirements against current state capabilities. The key outcome of capability matching phase is identification of capability shortfalls and their subsequent prioritisation. The level of priority is expressed as a degree of operational risk and relates to an expected intensity of operational engagement of force units in military operations. This approach stems from the principle of the capability assessment process which shall be carried out by military experts and which deals exclusively with an expected military end-state in operations.

In the first part of the article was described terminology, main features and phases of Russian engagement in the conflict. It was pronounced that Russian engagement in the conflict is possible to designate it as military operation. The second article deals with other aspects of the conflict focused on indication of the Russian forces in operation, its unmasking signs and available operational experiences. The ending of the article deals with future possibilities of Russian engagement in region of the post-soviet states and political-military aspects of Russian foreign policy in extensive connection.

The article deals with the use of military police in combat operations during dominance phase.Itdescribes the place androleofmilitarypoliceas combat support units, analyzes experience from previous and ongoing operations and specifies the possible activities of military police during this phase. In conclusion it gives recommendations for the development of capabilities in terms of the activities performed and possible changes in organizational structures. The content of the article is based on thesis prepared by the participant of the 27th General Staff Course at the University of Defence.

The paper deals with general aspects of problems of biological warfare agents and toxic industrial biologicals understanding from the point of view of protection against their effects and a possibility of specialists´ cooperation. The aim of the paper is to point to some problematic aspects of biological defense realization in connection to experiences from their historical usage. With the help of analysis of current strategical and operational documents and synthesis of available experiences from operational deployment of medical service and chemical corps units variants of optimization of current state have been proposed. These ones are main conclusion of the paper.

The article informs about the state service of professional soldiers in the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. It compares the state service of professional soldiers in both countries mentioned and analyses the changes that took place in the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic on January 1, 2016. With reference to the state service it deals with the career of professional soldiers in the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic. It offers the list of current career courses in the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic. It analyses and compares the career courses designed for officers of both countries.